Hannah gets Braces

We finally got things in order to get started on braces for Hannah. It's been a long 5 years to get to this point. The day after James was born Curtis took her in to a dental appt to have a baby tooth extracted. When she came home, I looked at the tooth she had and it was not a baby tooth. It was a permanent bicuspid. Oh, I was livid. I marched myself right down there and asked them what in the world had happened. They tried to placate me and tell me it was a baby tooth, which made me even more MAD!  I told them to not lie to me, that I had worked as a dental assistant and I KNEW a permanent tooth when I saw one. 

The dentist finally explained that after looking at her mouth he came to the conclusion that she would not have enough room for all her adult teeth and was looking at orthodontia anyway, so he removed that tooth to allow space for the others to come in. I accepted that and life went on…

However, as the years went by, it became apparent that she would have had room for that tooth and now had too much space in her teeth and we had to figure out how to correct that. We got ortho consultations and were going to get started last fall but then we had car trouble in Idaho and that pushed off getting her started until this spring. We chose to go to an orthodontist who is from Utah County but comes to Moab monthly, since it's likely she'll still be in braces when she leaves for college. I imagine she might end up along the Wasatch front for school so she can still be seen in their offices there. That's my best guess and hope.

Anyway, March 18 was the big day! She, Cambria and I drove to Moab to get her brackets on. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would since everything is just bonded on these days and they don't use the ones that go around the teeth anymore. Afterwards she took some Advil and we stopped at the frozen yogurt place for a treat before heading home. 

She's going to have a little more sparkle in her smile for the next 18 months. 

See the marks on her lips from the retractors? looks a bit like baseball seams. LOL

She's pretty excited about having straight teeth with no gaps. She hasn't had them adjusted yet! Wonder if she'll be so excited about it then. ;)